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Research Description

Skeletal muscle regenerative medicine

The Gilbert laboratory is interested in defining the interactions between skeletal muscle stem cells and the dynamic extracellular milieu that serve to orchestrate the elegant process by which a muscle stem cell switches from a state of quiescence, to activation, to proliferation, and then to differentiation, and how this process becomes derailed in disease states and in aging. We put a specific emphasis on evaluating how mechanical stresses, like compressive forces, shear stress, or extracellular matrix stiffness, synergize with niche proteins to drive stem cell behavior. The native stem cell niche is a three-dimensional entity. While conceptually it is accepted that dimensionality is a critical feature of tissues that defines the location and timing of cellular events, understanding how dimensionality exerts such a powerful influence on stem cell biology is not well understood. To gain as much insight as possible we study transgenic mouse models in addition to engineering new culture models of human skeletal muscle tissue. Ultimately our goal is to apply the knowledge we gain with these fundamental studies towards the development of therapeutics that support endogenous skeletal muscle repair by targeting and guiding the activity of the resident muscle stem cells.